Wonders and Secrets
by Lythanda
Summary: Dr. Rush meets Destiny in person. Well, sort of ... He has to find out her secret and who she really is. Enjoy reading and please comment, I love to hear how you think about it.
1. Part One

A/N: A big "thank you", a hug and a chocolate Destiny to Ladypredator, my wonderful beta-reader. She is exceptionally patient and helpful!

If you find any mistakes left, they are all mine, she did a wonderful job!

**Wonders and Secrets**

**Part One**

The view through the large glass windows of the observation deck was breathtaking. The star, Destiny was recently passing by, filled the entire view field of any observer who cared to take a look. No one did of course, everyone was busy minding their own issues. Everyone, except the one man who was standing there, staring out into the endless emptiness that was now filled with the beautiful light of the star.

The colour, the brightness, the incalculable eruptions of the corona were so powerful, it made him feel small and insignificant. Not a feeling Rush was used to; not at all. Yet it was so majestic in all its beauty that he almost felt tears in his eyes.

There was no sound besides the constant humming vibration of the ships engine that he could sense; which had become so familiar in the past weeks.

Knowing about the absolute silence out there in space, the sight grew even more fascinating and as if that was too much to bear, the melody of an aria came to his mind.

Without noticing, he raised his arm as if he wanted to touch the star, completely lost in the view that was spread before his eyes. It wasn't the beauty and greatness alone that touched him so deeply, it was knowing that there were wonders and secrets waiting out there. And he was here, right in the middle of it all.

It was a perfect moment and like all perfect moments it vanished like sand slipping through the fingers.

Slowly he lowered his arm, dragged himself away from the mesmerizing sight and left the observation deck. There was work to do and he was the only one who was capable of doing it. Besides there were enough mysteries and secrets concerning this ship to keep him busy for a lifetime.

Destiny was a challenge itself, an enigma, much like the puzzles he loved when he was a kid. The librarian of his school used to read a monthly scientific magazine and on the last page of it was always a science puzzle. Sometimes it was mathematics, sometimes it was physics. But it always required a straight, logical thought to solve it.

He solved each and every one of them. In the beginning it took some time, but later he was quicker.

Destiny was just like these puzzles and he wanted to learn, wanted to understand; he was sure, it would reveal all its secrets and wonders to him if he only understood.

Back in the control room he returned to the console he had left, when a sudden impulse had drawn him to the large glass-front of the observation deck. He closed his eyes for a few seconds, evaluating the information he gathered. There was only one option: he decided to try it. Slowly he moved his hand to a button, ready to press it. The data on the monitor was not exactly clear about the effect and he read through it once more hopefully to come to a better result. But eventually there was no other way than trying it.

Concentrating on the symbols rapidly moving over the monitor he saw something from the corner of his eyes.

Just a vague impression of something moving, where nothing should have been.

His heart pounded when he suddenly heard a soft female voice: "It is strongly recommended not to proceed."

His hand froze in midair, only millimetres away from the button he had intended to press.

An unknown female voice. Nothing uncommon here, there were many unknown voices among the marooned people trapped here with him. But usually they didn't care to address him. And they certainly didn't dare to offer advice.

He slowly turned around towards the direction of the voice, a strange mixture of anger and curiosity running through him.

He saw a flickering, bright, white light, almost too bright to look at it. He blinked and there she was. A tall female figure with long brown hair, dressed in a white robe, bright and shining like an angel. Like a ghost. Like a … holographic projection.

She looked at him with a curious expression on her face. "You are not supposed to be here."

Rush frowned. "But we are", he said slightly annoyed. There were so much more important things to ask, he hated discussing the obvious.

"Yes, you are. And so am I."

Crossing his arms over his chest he inquired "Who are you?"

"I am here to help."

The hologram was flickering, irritating his eyes and disturbing his thoughts. She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them and looked at him. "There is a major power failure in the core system of …" With another flicker she vanished into thin air.

Rush stared at the empty space she left behind, thoughts dashing through his brilliant mind. "Who are you?" he muttered under his breath, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

He tried everything to bring the hologram back; he even took the time to repeat every single step of what he did before she had appeared. Nothing would do. His last option was to push the button she recommended not to use, but he hesitated.

Hours later he had achieved nothing but a pounding headache and burning thirst. He realized that it was late at night and he should probably try to catch a few hours of sleep before proceeding.

~~~***~~~

The next day and a half passed by without any results and Rush became even more insufferable than before. After a few attempts to talk to him everyone who could afford to avoid his presence did so.

Nevertheless Eli dashed into the control room beaming at Rush. "We found the infirmary! It's great, it's so exciting!" he exclaimed.

"Yes, I can see that. Apart from the excitement, where and precisely how did you find it," Rush asked with raised eyebrows.

"Funny you ask that. I don't know. Well, I know where it is, it's in corridor 17, but I have no idea how we could have missed it before. I swear that door was locked. Honestly, I tried it several times … well, every time I went through that corridor, because it's the only door there and it looked important. And today it opened. It just opened. No idea why today, no idea why at all."

'_I am here to help.'_

"I think you had a little help," Rush replied with a tiny smile. "Is it operational?"

"T.J. is settling in right now, but as far as I understand, there is not enough power to run all the systems and she seemes to be overwhelmed with all the instruments. But it's a start, isn't it?"

"It certainly is. I will look over the power issues," Rush promised and Eli left to bring T.J. the good news.

Unfortunately the discovery of the sick-bay had a most unwanted side-effect. Colonel Young took the opportunity and sent out groups of his people to find more useful rooms and systems.

~~~***~~~

-tbc


	2. Part Two

**A/N:** Please let me know, what you think, comments and reviews are very appreciated!

Hope, you enjoy reading.

* * *

Rush concentrated on the results of his work on the power-supply-problem and nodded contently, when he heard the door open and Young and Scott entered the control room.

"Found anything useful?" Scott asked.

Folding his arms over his chest and sending him one of the glares that Young had secretly titled 'non-scientist-evaporation-glare', Rush said in a calm but nevertheless threatening voice: "If you consider the stabilisation of the power-supply for the infirmary useful, then yes."

"Good, keep at it. We'll find more work for you." Young sounded quite content.

"I wish you wouldn't. We don't have the power and the knowledge to run these systems. It would be advisable to go step by step and learn about each discovery before we search for new ones," Rush said, clearly impatient and annoyed.

Young waved his hand dismissingly. "You've made your point before, Rush. And so did I. No further argument about this subject. We need to find out as much about the ship's capabilities as soon as possible."

Rush's hand rubbed over his chin, making a scratchy noise. "I imagined you would say that. And I don't think anything I suggest will change your mind?"

Young shook his head, his facial expression was unreadable.

"Then … if you don't mind, I have work to do." The expression on Rush's face was clearly annoyance.

The two men left the room, unnoticed by Rush, who had returned to his attempts to bring back the hologram.

Little did he know that Young and Scott had just done him the favour.

~~~***~~~

"Restrain your people. Playing around with various systems is undesired behaviour."

Rush flinched at the sudden appearance of the holographic woman. He slowly breathed in to calm himself down.

He raised his eyebrows. "What makes you think I didn't try?"

"Try harder. I will not tolerate you playing around with things you do not understand. You will not understand. Not ever." Her voice sounded somehow impatient.

Anger welled up in his throat, he tried to swallow it, he really did. He knew it would be unwise to upset her. They needed her, he needed her and he wouldn't risk this chance to learn more about the ship and the ancient technology.

"So why do you offer help?" he asked through clenched teeth.

"I like you. You are a sweet child, eager to learn. Nice, despite your bad temper."

He stared at her completely at a loss of words. It was one of the extremely rare speechless moments in his life.

She smiled patronisingly at him. "Don't forget to stop your people from pushing every button they can find," she added and disappeared.

Rush felt the urgent need to kill someone. Slowly and painfully. After repressing the impulse to run through the corridors, shouting at everyone he would meet, he cleared his mind and remembered the reports he'd read by Daniel Jackson, who would have understood the frustration a conversation with an Ancient could cause. Their interaction with what they considered 'younger races' could be most annoying.

Still, it was absolutely inappropriate to call him a 'sweet child'.

Oh, how he hated to be patronised. Even by an Ancient hologram, which was – admittedly – much wiser than he was. Still, he so much wished it to be just an advanced help-system that would answer his questions and follow his commands. It obviously wasn't; there must have been an AI programmed in the system of the ship and it had a will of its own.

The only way to gain the information he needed was to manipulate her in some way. He had never been good at this kind of psychological games and to be honest, he hated them. And he wasn't quite sure if he could be successful playing them with her. But it was worth a try and he was determined to go for it.

~~~***~~~

Several days passed by while Rush tried to gain access to the main computer core of Destiny, still unsuccessful. His moods changed rapidly so everyone was cautious, trying to avoid him during one of the worst moods. He usually yelled at the poor victim, whether the person was really the source of his rage or just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

He tried to avoid the others as well; he had never been bothered by the looks they gave him, but now they began to annoy him. He knew he was tired, exhausted, but he just didn't have the time to rest.

Walking through the corridors of Destiny, heading for the control room, he saw other people standing together in small groups or pairs. He watched them talking and laughing and enjoying each other's company. He wasn't part of that, he never wanted to be, but it gave him a wee sting to watch them socialise.

Back in the control room, he started working on the enormous database of the ship. There was so much to read, so much to learn, he couldn't afford to waste a second of his time.

He ran his fingers through his hair, when the flickering light announced the appearance of the hologram. Unknowingly a tiny smile curled his lips, when he turned towards his most welcome guest.

She watched him silently for a few seconds before asking, "Do you request help or information?"

"I need access to the main computer core."

She raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

"I have to look into the main system, see how it works, so I can operate the ship's systems and calculate a course."

"I operate the ship's system. I decide about the course."

He felt anger crawling up from his stomach to his throat but he swallowed it. "Why do you offer help when you are not willing, to bestow it?" he asked more harshly than he had intended.

"I do help. Don't you notice that?"

"Not the help I need. Not the help I want," he said resigning.

"What do you expect? You are not supposed to be here."

Rush sighed. "You have said that before. And yes, we are not supposed to be here. But we are. You did not even answer my very first question. Who are you?"

She blinked. "If you are not able to find out who I am, you are not worth my help." The hologram flickered and she disappeared.

Rush rubbed his neck and felt the sudden sting of pain in his shoulders. He groaned quietly.

With a sudden flicker, the holographic woman reappeared.

"You don't look well," she said soft-spoken and a worried expression emerged on her beautiful face. "You should look after yourself."

He didn't answer, a sudden feeling of exhaustion flooding over his body and mind. Tiredly he shook his head. "I have to take care of the system and the people. Even if they don't appreciate it." He smiled sadly.

"_I_ take care of the systems. Go get some rest."

He didn't sleep well, although he was exhausted beyond words. His brilliant mind couldn't rest, even less now that he had so much more to think of. The hologram puzzled him exceedingly and while his body forced him to rest, his mind kept repeating what she had said. She offered help and wasn't helpful at the same time. Yet she had opened the infirmary, which was doubtlessly a big help. But she refused to give him the information he needed to understand the ship's systems, not to mention access to the main core system.

He knew he needed that, but she seemed to think differenly.

He awoke with a pounding headache; it felt as if someone very small was trying to force their way out of his scull by breaking through the bone without caring about any resulting damage. Getting up he had to suppress a sudden nausea and a slight tumble. With a painful groan he set off for the sick-bay to see if Lt. Johanson had anything there to help him.

She greeted him with a worried expression. "You look terrible, Dr. Rush. Lay down."

He suppressed the impulse to shake his head, but sat down on one of the chairs. "Just a headache," he said. "Do you have any Aspirin here?"

She shook her head, looking at him in disbelief. "You look much worse than a simple headache."

"Oh, thank you so much. You look quite well too." Despite the growing pain in his head he was still capable of his very own acid tone.

She sighed. "I'm so sorry, we ran out of Aspirin a few days ago. But look at this; I just discovered it this morning. It looks like some kind of chemical synthesizer." She pointed to a large device in the wall. It was obviously switched on, as indicated by some green and yellow lights.

Rush went over to the device, carefully avoiding rapid movements, while T.J. watched him with concern. He studied the console cautiously, reading the symbols on the display. After a few minutes he started typing something and a few seconds later a small amount of colourless liquid came out of the outlet port in the middle of the device.

"Acetylsalicylic acid," he said with a grim smile. "Just what I need."

He tried to smell the liquid but he could find nothing significant. With a sigh he swallowed the whole potion, ignoring T.J., who exclaimed "NO!"

She stared at him in disbelief. "You didn't know what exactly that was! It could have poisoned you, even if the synthesizer said, it was acetylsalicylic acid. It could have been anything. We should have analysed it first!"

"Analyse it? With what? Another of Destiny's devices? Why should we believe the results of one device and distrust another?"

"But you just drank it. That's too risky."

He gave her a small smile. "I have faith in Destiny. And besides that, I had no other option; I couldn't have worked with that headache. And I seriously need to get back to work."

A red flashing light grabbed his attention and he turned to the console. "It seems that the device needs components to synthesize anything else. We should try to find them."

T.J. nodded. "First I'll feed our antibiotics into the analysing tool, to make sure it can reproduce them, then I'll make a list of components for various useful pharmaceuticals that we might need. Any planetary mission team can look out for them." She beamed at him. "This is great! First the infirmary itself, now the discovery of this device … it will enable me to help so much more."

She started to write something down, while murmuring "I just have to figure out how the diagnostic devices of the beds work."

Rush smiled and left the sick-bay.


	3. Part Three

"Do you request help or information?"

Rush looked up to the now almost familiar frame of the hologram and she looked back, quietly waiting for an answer and slightly flickering. He looked down at the console that displayed another locked database.

"I need access to this database."

"It is part of the main system."

"Good. I need access," he insisted.

"I can not grant you access to the main core. I have told you before, remember?"

He remained silent for a few minutes, staring at the display, as if he could force it to open up for him by just wishing hard enough. Hearing a sound that was almost something like a giggle, he looked up.

"You are funny, do you know that?" She smiled widely.

He narrowed his eyes. No one had ever considered him 'funny'. Well, except Gloria, who had always loved his sense of humour. A wave of wonderful, yet painful memories floated through his mind and he blinked away a solitary tear.

She furrowed her brow watching him. He was a puzzling specimen of his kind and she wondered if she would ever be able to understand them. He seemed so eager to learn and yet he didn't understand even the simplest things. She decided to test him, before taking him more seriously.

"What do you want?" she asked with soft-spoken voice.

He faltered, thinking of all the people aboard the ship. He clearly wanted to stay and learn, but they wanted to go home. Maybe this was a way of combining both wishes. He could tell her about the desperate wish of the others, gain her sympathy for their pain, ask her to give him access to the ship's systems and then use it for his own agenda.

"We want to go home to see our families and loved ones and go back to our lives. We are billions of light-years away from Earth without any hope of ever getting home," he said trying to sound convincing and make her empathise the needs of the other people.

She looked at him in silence for a while.

"What do you want?" Her tone was aggravatingly patient.

"I told you," he replied, hardly able to stay calm. "What do you want me to say?"

"I want you to be honest. What do you want?"

He closed his eyes. No more games, he decided, he was no match for her.

"I want to learn."

She smiled. "And so you shall."

She disappeared in the usual way and Rush turned back to the console. To his disappointment, the database was still locked. He felt crestfallen, even betrayed, until he took a closer look and found something else.

Another formerly locked database was now opened. It had nothing to do with the ships systems, but it contained a vast amount of information about the ships journey. All the data Destiny collected during her travel through the galaxies, countless details about stars, planets, gas formations she had passed by.

He rubbed his eyes and started reading.

~~~***~~~

A few days later, when Destiny had dropped out of FTL again, Young radioed Rush to inform him that another planetary mission was about to start.

"Tell them to collect samples of plants, rocks and whatever they find. We need to analyse them and see what the synthesizer can make of them. Lt. Johanson will provide a list of chemicals she considers useful."

"Understood. Anything else?"

Rush sighed. "If you find a key to Destiny's main frame, let me know."

The answer was a hoarse laughter and he switched off the radio.

Rush's moods had improved. He still wasn't what people would call a pleasant acquaintance, but he was calm and focused on his work without yelling at people. He remained mostly on his own, he rarely ate with the others in what they had turned into the cafeteria of the ship, but he returned the brief greetings of others, who when they passed by in the corridors of the ship.

He still didn't sleep much, yet the overwhelming tiredness had vanished from his face. His work did seem to suit him and although Young inquired after concrete results from time to time, he managed to put him off each time.

Actually he hadn't told Young about the hologram. He had told nobody at all, in a peculiar way it seemed to be something private. She never appeared when anyone else was there, not even when one of Eli's kinos was sneaking around, as if she tried to avoid anyone witnessing her appearance.

The thought that she was only a hallucination of his overfatigued brain came to his mind at one point, but he brushed it away. He knew that the Ancients used holographic projections to support the crews of their ships and that there was one in Atlantis too. So it was obviously nothing out of the ordinary for such a system component to be here.

And he was indeed flattered, that he – of all the people on the ship - was her choice to communicate with. Although he knew, he was of course the only logical choice.

"Was the database satisfactorily?"

Rush looked up from the console and smiled. "Very. Uhm … Thank you."

"Very pleased to be of service."

He frowned, he had never experienced her so polite. Sometimes he thought her program must have a random choice of personalities implemented.

"So you are learning?"

He looked at her with narrowed eyes. "Yes, I am."

"Is there anything else I can do for you?" Her smile was so sweet, so lovely; he had to blink several times to see if he was hallucinating.

He took a deep breath. "You know what I really wish for."

She sighed and flickered.

"I can not grant you access to the main core database, at least not unless you have proven worthy of me talking seriously with you."

"What do I have to do to be worth the trouble?" he asked with a slightly sarcastic undertone in his voice.

Another intense flicker indicated power issues, but he didn't care at the moment. He concentrated on the hologram, desperately hoping this was the moment of a breakthrough.

She remained silent.

"You have asked me who I am. I return the question. Who am I?" she said after several minutes.

"What?!?" He was at the end of his tether, after all these days she had been obviously testing him, playing with him. And he was tired of it.

Staring at her, as if he was trying to force her by the pure strength of his will, he just wanted to put an end to this stupid game.

"Answer the question and I will start talking to you."

"You _are _talking to me."

"Yes, I am. In a way. Not in the proper way I should talk to someone who wants to run the ship."

"And you need the answer to this simple question to find out who is the right choice?"

"Is it a simple question?"

He didn't answer.

"I need to know that you understand what you are dealing with. That you truly understand the ship and the nature of this mission. Prove to me that you are what I believe you are. What I hope you are." There was a pleading note in her voice that struck him.

He closed his eyes to concentrate.

"Who are you? Are you the AI of the ship? Are you a help system, installed to support the crew? Are you Destiny herself? Does the ship actually have a consciousness?" he muttered under his breath. He had been going over these questions many times before, but he had never really needed an answer.

Automatically he started pacing the area in front of the console, totally focused, lost in thought, mumbling whatever came to his mind. "Or are you …"

A thought appeared, crawling through his mind like a spider, weaving a web, connecting details of data he gathered from Destiny's databases. It drew thin lines between information he read in the reports of the famous SG-1 team and the Atlantis-mission concerning the ancients and their understanding of their own nature and their fondness for enigmatic entrances, hidden clues and cryptic messages. Connecting all these pieces of data to her variable and irritating behaviour towards him, his idea made more and more sense.

He stopped pacing, turned to her and looked her in the eyes.

"You're their legacy, aren't you?" he asked solemnly. "You are what remained of the original crew, the creators of the ship and its AI."

She didn't answer, just looked at him.

"You are all of it, the ship's AI, the crew, all the minds melted into one to preserve all their knowledge and all their achievements."

"To preserve and to offer when needed," she concluded. "_We_ are Destiny."

He was speechless in the light of the truth, unable to do anything but stare at her and try to understand the complexity of the entity facing him.

With a bright smile she nodded. "Very well done." She looked contently at him. "_Now_ we can talk."

An overwhelming sensation of happiness filled his mind and he could not hold back a wide smile.

Wonders and secrets … and he was about to start exploring them.

-End


End file.
